Bit Of A Noob VW Question...

Ok, so I wasn't really playing much during the early chapters of VW, and since then I haven't had much interest in doing VW, what with the horrid drop rates. I did however start accumulating stones several months back so I have a nice stockpile of them, and I've completed sandy/bastok (sure wish someone would do a windurst 1-4).

My question is, do you actually have to have the jeuno/zilart/tav/ToAU Stratums to participate in the fights and get loot/atmacites/periapt? What are your restrictions if you just have a voidstone, can't actually do the popping and obviously can't teleport to the zone? I've heard reports that you can participate with just a voidstone but the wiki isn't very clear on if this is true. Also with the stone capacity being 6 now (and I only have 3) can you participate in the extra kills with no stone/stratum?... wouldn't want to join a group that's killing 6 times and only be able to help them for half of them.

You don't have to have those KIs to participate. For zilart and the two new ones, I think you have to have the KI to get loot.

You can do all 6 fights w/o having the 6 stones, you'll just get xp and cruor for those extra fights, no items.

As far as I know for all VW, you do not need clears to get rewards. This includes periapts/atmacites/exp/cruor/items. The only thing you need clears for is the ability to pop, provenance access, and teleports. You can even participate without a voidstone, but you will get only exp/cruor (smaller amount).

Also, there are no prereqs for Zilart/CoP/ToAU. You can get the tier 1 abyssite for those paths right away.

Sounds good, thanks. One more question does anyone know if the kill credit for upgrading works backwards based off titles (like the aby MB/cat quests) or will credit only count while holding the appropriate Stratum? For example if I were to join a T1 jeuno clear group before completing windurst T1-4 would I be able to immediately upgrade my T1 white to T2 once I finished windurst?

You have to do t1-t4 for all cities before you get credit for Jeuno climbs. Then you have to climb Jeuno in order. Zilart, Aht, and Tav climbs are unrelated and you can climb them (provided you have the KI) w/o climbing another area.

I figured as much, but we can always hope can't we. Thanks again, now to cross my fingers waiting for someone to do a windy 1-4

each nation t1-4 only needs 2-4 ppl depending on how good the players are. A party of 6 should be able to do it easy regardless.

Doesn't work that way, unfortunately. In your example, you would need to reclear Step1 Jeuno once you got the white T1 abyssite.

You can do them w/o the KI as mentioned above. However!

I would strongly suggest progressing through the VW tiers when you can as it unlocks more temp items.

People w/o fanatics etc are basically a wasted slot the harder the mobs get.